Following one Rajesh, who talked her into dreaming an enjoyable life as a well-paid domestic help, she arrived in the capital on Thursday afternoon, before being rescued by the police. [break]She also happened to know that the trafficker had already gotten fake passports and citizenship cards on her name.
Binita Dahal (name changed), a fresh SLC graduate who had won accolades from her family and neighbors for securing second division, now feels that she is luckily saved from a nightmare. The 16-year-old from Samalbul VDC in Ilam was brought to a rented room at Kapan two weeks ago and kept waiting for ´a free visa´ to Kuwait. As luck would have it, she visited her cousin, an employee at a media organization, to tell him about her abroad plans. The cousin sensed something wrong and approached the police for investigation.
Jeena and Binita are among the five teenagers and three adult women rescued by Metropolitan Police Range Kathmandu (MPRK) from the clutches of traffickers. MPRK has arrested five persons in connection to the crime. The alleged traffickers are Rajan Maharjan and Kala Maharjan of Lalitpur, Yam Bahadur Thangsung of Paanchthar, Ram Kumar Thapa of Nuwakot and Reena Rai of Sunsari.
“The traffickers planned to take the girls and women abroad using fake documents,” said the MPRK chief SP Ramesh Kharel. “We would prosecute them on human-trafficking charges.”
Usha Pariyar, 16, of Kerkha-5 in Jhapa, could not imagine Kala, a neighbor, planning to send her and others abroad for abuse and exploitation. She was promised a placement at a beauty parlor in Kuwait. “All of us were told that we did not even need to make passports and other documents. Thanks to my luck, I am saved,” she added.
Kala and Rajan have been involved in trafficking girls abroad, especially Gulf countries, where Nepali women are subjectd to hellish lives as domestic helps. Officials investigating the case said that the couple seemed to have a long history of conning innocent girls on the pretext of overseas placements.
“We were very wrong for believing that somebody could so easily send us abroad for nothing in return,” said Seema Keru, 20, of Kerkha-7. “I just wonder what kind of hell we would have landed in had police not intervened on time.”
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